Barry Greenstein – Poker Player Profile

By Nick Laurrell

Barry Greenstein is a unique and cherished member of the poker community. Not only is he the only poker player to have won at least 3 WSOP bracelets and 3 WPT events, he’s the only player to give all of the money won from those 3 WSOP victories and 3 WPT victories to charity. For more than a decade, Greenstein aka “Robin Hood of Poker” has been donating every penny of his tournament winnings to children’s charities. That would mean that Barry has given away about $8 million.

Even with his substantial donations, Greenstein is making plenty of money: not only is he a regular at the highest of stakes cash games in the world, Greenstein retired at the age of 36 from Silicone’s Valley’s Symantec with a handsome financial package. Greenstein is also a renowned poker author – a signed copy of his book “Ace on the River” has become his trademark gift to any player who knocks him out of a tournamen.

Greenstein is also credited with teaching three other highly successful how to play poker: Joe Sebok has 20 WPT and WSOP cashes combined and is Greenstein’s stepson, WPT champion and 17 time WSOP cash finisher Mimi Tran taught Vietnamese to Greenstein in exchange for poker lessons and 3 time WPT champion Tuan Le credits his considerable tournament success to Greenstein’s book “Ace on the River.”

Greenstein is an extremely active member of the online poker community. As a member of the prestigious PokerStars team, Greenstein plays under the name of barryg1; he has also been known to accept bizarre prop bets placed on forums (he won a $10,000 bet by saying “lol donkaments” after winning a hand on GSN’s High Stakes Poker, a bet issued to him by the members of the 2+2 forum.)

His 3 WSOP bracelets have come in vastly different games: 2004 $5,000 NL Deuce to Seven Draw, 2005 $1,500 PL Omaha and 2008 $1,500 Razz while his WPT titles are of course all in NL Hold’em. He finished second in the 2008 WSOP Player of the Year Race to Erick Lindgren in what turned out to be the closest WSOP POY race ever (and he could have won the POY had his Aces not run into Scotty Nguyen’s rolled up 7s in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. championship.)

Greenstein dedicated his 2005 $1,500 PL Omaha WSOP victory to his friend Charlie Tuttle who had been battling cancer at the time. That dedication turned out to be one of the last of Tuttle’s life, as he lost his battle with cancer less than a week later.